The business of invention: considering project management in the arts and industry

Project management has well developed theoretical constructs and is becom- ing increasingly well established in core strategy beyond the industrial and corporate sec- tors from which it first emerged. With a concurrent increase in the significance of innova- tion, project managing for creativity is an area of research and enquiry of considerable sig- nificance. Notionally occupying polar opposite cultural positions in terms of perspectives and processes of creativity, project management in the arts is widely considered to vary significantly from corporate strategy and process. If business were to be more generally characterised by ‘organisation’ and discipline, the arts are more commonly celebrated for disorganisation, indiscipline, and the fundamental challenge to organisation itself. Consid- ering both the confluences and variations between established project management theory in business and practice in the arts, this text introduces theoretical constructs pertaining to creative processes and highlights areas for consideration in the understanding and further development of project management theory.